Murder by Illusion Read online

  The Promenade, Whitburn on Sea

  I see the bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way.

  DESOLATE SEAGULLS WHIRL AIMLESSLY AGAINST STEEL GREY AUTUMNAL SKY, damp and drizzly; it has been raining on and off all day, an insistent rain, not heavy but relentlessly miserable. A chill wind blows in from the dull grey sea, the colours of sea and sky so closely match it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

  It is midafternoon in late September, but the darkening iron-hewed sky presages the oncoming evening sooner than the clocks might suggest. Daylight is fading, if the miserable grey murk could ever be considered as daylight .Grey and damp, Whitburn on Sea, huddled on the Yorkshire coast between Scarborough and Whitby is at best, on a bright summer’s day, unprepossessing. On this day at the end of season, damp and grey, it is not even second or third cousin to the smarter, more successful seaside towns along the coast. Smart sophisticated Scarborough with its North and South bays, roughhewn Whitby with its Abbey, fishing fleet, the best fish and chips in the land and its Dracula connection, sensible Bridlington, genteel Filey, they all far outshine Whitburn on Sea as desirable east coast seaside holiday destinations.

  The beaches are cold and windswept, all but deserted as lines of curling whitecaps march across the bay; a lone surfer in a black and red wetsuit out on the grey foam flecked waters of Whitburn Bay briefly rides a jagged curling wave before falling off – wipeout - and an elderly gentleman, well wrapped up, slowly walks back and forth with a metal detector in his gloved hand, searching for coins dropped by holiday makers. He gets a beeping signal, bends down to find his treasure and throws whatever he has found aside in disgust and moves on again. A few yards further on he gets anther beep and finds a ten pence piece, his total haul for four hours of cold and miserable metallic beach combing, fifty-seven pence, not much, but when you have to live on a state pension, every penny counts.

  One or two hardy souls huddle into deckchairs on the promenade, determined to get their money’s worth, whatever the weather, or maybe they have nowhere else to go, being unfortunate boarders at a seafront bed and breakfast where guests must vacate their rooms by ten and cannot return until five.

  The bandstand in the meagre strip of grass and thin weedy flowerbeds that passes for the seafront park, (although there is a crazy golf course) is empty apart from a sodden heap of wind strewn rubbish, soft drink cans, three used condoms of assorted colours and a discarded syringe. Residents at the Oakleaf Retirement Home for the Elderly opposite the park on the seafront might recall the last time a brass band actually played in in the band stand, but it was surely many years ago – and probably out of tune.

  The beach huts, paint peeling and sandblasted are all shut up, left to huddle together against the sea wall. Further along the promenade, a few amusement arcades are still open, a bingo caller half-heartedly calling out his numbers to the 10 or 11 women still hoping to land a win ,’Number 15 young and keen, and we all know what that means in nine months’ time, don’t we ladies? Number 44 droopy drawers; number 69 either way up; number 34 ask for more; number 3 cup of tea and we have a winner.’

  Slot machines swallow endless coins and refuse to pay out, the crane claw grab drops but does not pick up a fluffy bunny, the mechanical clown in his glass cage still sways and laughs with an evil glint of eye, the money changer in her cubicle yawns and scratches her armpits, business was as dull as the weather outside

  Whirling screeching seagulls squabbling over a fallen chip; scraps of paper, a discarded crisp packet skitters along the pavement. The whelk stalls, kiss me quick hats and bucket and spade stalls, pink tooth rotting rock and candy floss stalls and hot dog stalls are all mostly still open, shutters raised, the stall holders wrapped in coats and scarves hoping to squeeze a last pound or two from the desultory holiday makers scurrying along the front to avoid a sudden sharp squall before the season finally crawls to an undignified halt.

  Gypsy Rose Colangelo, (real name Martha Smith) Fortune Teller to the Stars, is still open for business, but her crystal ball obviously failed to advise that she would have no customers that day. Harry’s Fish and Chip is still open, serving chips, cod and haddock, battered sausages, chicken pies, steak pies, kebabs and pickled onions but custom is slow. The Mayflower Tea Room is open, with tea and scones, cucumber sandwiches, Danish pastries and iced tea cakes on offer but apart from two old ladies who have spent more than an hour over one pot of tea with scones and strawberry jam, the café is empty.

  Whitburn on Sea is dying on its feet and nobody gives a damn. No, it is already dead but nobody can be bothered to tell it so.

  There are few cars parked on the promenade, nobody is going to the beach today and anyway there is nothing to look at out to sea apart from greyness and rain. A grey Ford Focus, an appropriate colour, is parked a bit further down the promenade. A young family from Leeds, the Elliott’s on a day trip to the seaside are inside, Denise and Alan Elliott, sit in front eating fish and chips( from Harry’s) directly from the paper, the air redolent with fish and vinegar, the car will stink for days afterwards. Behind, them Wayne and Beverly, aged 7 and 5 with a bag of chips between them. argue and bicker, pushing and shoving at each other, each claiming that the other started it, ‘Mum, Wayne’s got more chips than me,’ ‘Dad, Beverly kicked me,’ ‘Mum, Wayne pinched me,’ ‘Wayne…,’ ‘Dad, Beverly…,’ ‘Mum…Dad…’

  Mum and Dad aren’t talking to each other either, the atmosphere is frigid and brittle, and the outing has been a disaster. Alan didn’t want to come in the first place but Denise insisted; he was out of work again and they could not now afford a new television set and so the kids had been placated with a trip to the seaside. Which everyone had hated.

  In the distance fairground lights, a multi coloured coruscation, brighten the heavy leaden sky and faint snatches of a carousal organ drift across the choppy waves and the wooden pier, a relic of a Victorian golden age that never happened stretches out into the grey curling wind-flecked seas as heavy swells roll around the posts and cross bracing of the timber supports.

  Irritated by all the arguing and squabbling Alan bundles up his chip papers into a ball, opens his window and throws it out, startling a wandering seagull, which squawks in indignation and flaps away. ‘Alan,’ Denise snaps, ‘don’t throw your chip papers out like that, it’s littering, what if you were seen, you could get fined and how can we afford that, eh, get out and pick it up. Put it in a bin. Go on.’

  ‘Aagh, fuck off, woman. Do it yourself’

  ‘Mum, Dad said a rude word,’ Beverly shouts, smirking, not quite sure why ‘fuck’ was a rude word, knowing only that it was.

  ‘You can shut your trap an’ all.’ Alan snarls, he is in a foul temper, to think he gave up an afternoon in front of the (old) television for this fucking nightmare, racing from Kempton Park was on and he could have a bet, he fancied Blue Mountain Prince in the 3 o’clock race, odds at 7/ 1, not carrying too much weight, soft going, should be a walk up. Could have had a bet at a bookies here of course, but Denise wouldn’t hear of it, I know you, once you get into a bookies you’ll be there all afternoon, besides we got no money for betting,’ but he had a fiver tucked away she didn’t know about, a fiver on Blue Mountain Prince at 7/1, that’s 35 quid, more than enough for a few drinks and another bet or two. Fuck! (As it turned out, Blue Mountain Prince finished fifth, several lengths behind the favourite, Moonshine Retreat at 4/1 on. He lost his fiver a few days later when a sure fire accumulator failed to produce a single winner.)

  Reaching over, Alan switches on the car radio, turning the volume up high to shut out the sound of bickering and fighting from behind. ‘And our classic blast from the past’ a DJ announces in a bad imitation of an American accent, is Credence Clearwater Revival and, ‘Bad Moon Rising’ which made number one , back in 1969.’

  The song echoes out from the open window of the car, to be snatched away by the wind to mingle with the raucous shrieks of the seagulls.

  TWO

 
The Seville Theatre, Whitburn on Sea

  ‘Cut you in half, you little bleeder’

  THE SEVILLE THEATRE, WHITBURN ON SEA, lies perched on the seafront close by the pier, squatting like a toad on the edge of a pond, it is sadly dilapidated and in dire need of maintenance, something that the elderly owners of the theatre seem reluctant to undertake. Some of the tubes in the flickering red neon façade sign occasionally short out so that the sign then reads ‘eville heat.’ Benny Marsden, the manager of the Seville Theatre has been meaning to get it repaired for ages but somehow he never round to it and now it is the end of the summer season so the repair can wait until just before the start of next year’s season, along with the repaint of the peeling façade, assuming of course that he actually does get a budget for maintenance next year. He is not counting on it.

  At one time they used to stage a Christmas pantomime, but even the Fairy Godmother could not wave her magic wand and bring in paying customers, some nights there were more cast members than audience and so the idea of a Christmas panto was finally abandoned about 6 years ago. So, no repairs or maintenance until next year. Perhaps.

  Like the rest of the town, the Seville Theatre is dying on its feet, houses have steadily fallen over the years, revenue is down, costs are up and the overheads are now such that they can only afford to hire second or third rate acts for the summer season, mediocre virtual unknowns who are not going to bring in the paying customers, not going to put bums on seats.

  Billboards around the town and a standing advert in the Whitburn Gazette read:

  The Seville Theatre - Whitburn on Sea:

  Proudly presents

  A Grand Summer Extravaganza

  followed by a list of names, second rate names, third rate names, no rate names

  The bill is also to be found in glass fronted display cases at either side of the theatre entrance, the bill now slightly faded, the glass front spattered with rain drops and seagull droppings, obviously discerning avian critics. The headline act, Dickie Wallace, is a sad comedian who once appeared on a regional TV talent show and came second, his name and his photograph (taken several years ago when he still had all his hair) is displayed at the head of the bill, heralded as side-splittingly funny. Most holidaymakers have never heard of him, he is long past whatever prime he had and his jokes are even older.

  Tony Bonnet, (Hilarious TV Comedy Star) the other comedian on the bill,( the term comedian used lightly), once had a single line appearance in ‘The Last of the Summer Wine’ followed by minor role in a desperately unfunny sit-com that lasted one season before being pulled, never to see the light of day again, not even on daytime re-runs. He has not worked on television since.

  The International Cabaret Star is an unknown singer who once worked on a cruise ship, as for Mandy Sweet, Brought Back by Popular Demand, this was the only booking she could get, and lucky to get it at that. Alessya and Ayeasha, Exotic Dance Duo are no longer in the show and the juggler has lost his balls.

  It’s cold and blustery so we won’t spend too much time looking at the rest of the bill, a magician, a dancing dog act, and a Romanian tumbling trio. Let’s get inside, at least it is dry inside (except in the prop store where Benny Marsden has still to fix the leaking roof) It’s the Tuesday afternoon matinee, the last but one act before the interval, so we might just catch that, it’s the magic act, billed as THE GREAT SANTINI, Magician and Illusionist Extraordinaire. ‘As seen on Tyne Tees Television.’ It might be interesting but I would not hold your breath.

  The theatre is half empty, no, let’s be positive, the theatre is half full, in fact one of the best attendances they have had all season, but this owes nothing to the quality of the acts, it is simply due to fact that it is raining outside. Wet, damp and miserable. Like the exterior, the interior of the theatre is shabby and run down, the seat coverings are worn and stained, the aisle carpet has long since seen better days, whatever pattern it once held now a forgotten memory, the floral pattern gilt around the balcony and stage surround is cracked and peeling and back drops and scenery need re-painting – or scrapping. The stage curtains are dull and limp, lighting second rate, the orchestra in the pit are the pits, and it is a sad, desolate, run down and pathetic excuse for a theatre. Execrable. And the acts are no better.

  On stage, Charlie Chilton aka The Great Santini is trying to hold his act together. The audience is apathetic and bored, restless, waiting for the interval so that they can head to the bar and Charlie has not got them, as he likes to put it, by the balls. In fact he has not got them by anything at all and he knows it. He is sweating heavily and his makeup is starting to run. He is queasy, stomach roiling; no lunch and three scotches hardly the ideal preparation for a magic act relying on slick timing and sleight of hand.

  His assistant, Clarissa Manners, known as Clarrie, is endeavoring hard to energise the lacklustre audience, swanning around the stage, looking decorous, pouting, pushing out her chest, frequently pointing to The Great Santini to try and milk some applause, which is badly needed. She knows the show is a disaster, that Charlie is botching the routines badly, his timing is out and that he is losing it if not already lost it, but she is a professional, been on the stage for years and although she and Charlie have never been lovers, (unlike some, actually most, of his assistants) she cares for him as a workmate and friend, cares about the act and is doing all that she can to rescue the situation. A slim brunette, Clarrie is dressed in a skimpy red spangled leotard, cut high on the thigh, with a wired under bra to lift up and push out her breasts to reveal a lot of cleavage which does not go unnoticed by the males in the audience. She wears high heel silver shoes and fish net stockings clad her slender legs, she is proud of her shapely pins and knows how to display them on stage to good effect. A good magician’s assistant is part of the misdirection, the men in the audience take their eye off the magician to look at her and the wives watch their husbands. However, Clarrie can see this audience no longer care, ‘even flashing my fanny is not going to wake this lot up.’

  The act had gone wrong almost from the start; Charlie called for a volunteer from the audience, for a child to come up on stage and Clarrie knew, just knew that it was going to be a mistake. You could smell the scotch on Charlie’s breath from three feet away and he was mumbling to himself as they waited in the wings to go on.

  ‘Go on, Shane,’ a Mum said, pushing her son forward, ’You’ll enjoy it, seeing a magician up on the stage’

  ‘Don’t wanna.’

  ‘Come on son, I won’t bite, well not much anyhow,’ Charlie said, none too distinctly. Reluctantly, Shane mounted the steps and on to the stage. ‘There’s a good lad, give him a round of applause’ Clarrie asks as she takes his hand and leads him over to The Great Santini, noticing that even though the lad was only about 7 or 8 he had a good look down her front as she bent over to greet him., ‘yeah, bet your Dad has had a good look an’ all while your Mum wasn’t watching,’

  ‘What’s your name son?’ Charlie asks.

  ‘Shane. Your breath don’t half stink.’

  ‘Magic breath, son. Magic breath.’

  ‘More like piss pot breath,’ Shane mutters under his breath but Charlie doesn’t hear. With a flourish and drum roll from the pits, he produces coins and then table tennis balls from Shane’s ear and then from under his chin, but Shane is singularly unimpressed, even less so when Charlie attempts a card trick and spills the cards all over the stage, Charlie bluffs it out, making it seem as part of the trick but Shane isn’t having it. The Floating Light Bulb trick went off without a hitch, but Shane remains apathetic, disinterested, as though he saw light bulbs floating in the air every day.

  ‘You got a rabbit?’ he asks, picking his nose and dropping the bogey onto the stage.

  ‘A rabbit?’

  Yeah, rabbit, you know fluffy thing wi’ long ears.’

  ‘Cheeky little sod! ‘No why?’

  ‘You supposed to pull a rabbit out of a hat, top hat, that’s what magicians s’pose to do.’


  ‘Not this magician.’

  ‘I think you’re dead crap.’ Shane responded and turned away, ready to leave, before turning back to Charlie. ‘You going to saw ‘er in ‘alf?’ pointing at Clarrie. ‘Wun’t mind seeing that, if there’s blood.’

  ‘Saw you in half, you little bleeder,’ Charlie said under his sodden breath, ‘Nay, not this show, my saw’s blunt from cutting through all the bones, like. I make her disappear, though, later on.’

  ‘Boring,’ Shane says as he makes his way down from the stage, Clarrie clapping him off enthusiastically, desperate to drum up some interest in the act which dying on it’s not too steady feet.

  The next trick went off without a hitch or cock up. not that there was much that can go wrong with the Chair Suspension Trick, nothing much for Charlie to screw up but his performance was lacklustre and lifeless, disinterested, as if he no longer cared. Two folding metal chairs have been on stage throughout his act. Whilst Clarrie pirouetted and postured, Charlie places the chairs back to back about three feet apart and then lays a thick board across the back of the chairs, like a trestle table. Prettily, Clarrie climbs on and lies down on the board and Charlie covers her body with a black cloth.

  Drums roll, lights flash and Charlie removes one chair, leaving her suspended, balanced horizontally on the back of the remaining chair. More drums and lights and Charlie removes the board, so that there is nothing holding her up apart from the back of the chair under her shoulders. Charlie, feeling really nauseous, desultorily passes a hoop up and down Clarrie’s body, to prove that there are no suspension wires holding her up.

  He walks away, milking the muted applause, then replaces the board, not very steadily, then replaces the chair, removes the cloth before handing Clarrie down and they both take a bow. Not too shabby, but he has still not lit a spark with the audience, their balls as far as ever from his reach. A few claps, nothing to get too excited about, it a fairly uneventful trick anyway. Charlie, sweat running down his neck closes his eyes and forces down a rush of nausea. ‘What have I come to,’ he asks himself, ‘I’m way better than this, was way better than this, played big theatres, the London Palladium, Leeds Variety, Glasgow Empire, summer season at Blackpool, what the fuck am I doing in this ratty, tatty shithole? Played with big stars, not like this tosspot Dickie Wallace, who the fuck has ever heard of him, played a summer season with Bob Monkhouse once. Once. Was good once…’